Hidden Gems: Meet Laura Lee Townsend, LMFT, LPCC of The Integrative Counseling Center

Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Lee Townsend, LMFT, LPCC.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As an undergrad at Ohio University, I started out as a double major in Psychology and Journalism. When Psychology required more math than I was willing to do, journalism won.
At least for a while.
After graduation, I moved to San Clemente, California, to start my journalism career. I worked my way into healthcare journalism and then into healthcare advertising, where I quickly discovered agency life was not for me.
While I was at the healthcare advertising agency, I was pursuing a health coaching certification that helped me pivot into working as a nutritionist and manager for a boutique fitness facility.
From there I went to work as a health coach and nutritionist for a functional medicine clinic that specialized in reversing type 2 diabetes in Irvine, CA. I loved learning about the connection between physical and emotional health, but I also realized I had some concerns with the rigidity of some of the protocols as well as continuing to work for others.
Around the same time, my partner and I were getting serious about starting a family. I wanted something with more flexibility, better pay, and independence. I decided I would apply to Pepperdine University’s Irvine campus and that if I got accepted, that would be my answer.
Well clearly I was accepted and that was the start of my Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology. I am proud to say I graduated with a 4.0 while having my first daughter in the middle of my schooling. It’s wild looking back on that.
I graduated in May of 2018 and still had hours to earn as an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist. Once I was a fully Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (I did the dual licensure track) in 2021, I opened my own private practice in San Clemente.
Then in that same year, I got the biggest curveball of my life: I was expecting twins. We have no twins in either side of our families, so it was a total shock. We knew with a family double the size that we would not be able to stay in Southern California and afford the life and opportunities we wanted. So we made the decision to move to Columbus, Ohio in 2023 since we both were born and raised in Ohio.
We were so glad we still had friends and family in Columbus, Ohio, and they helped us settle in Gahanna, Ohio, and we’ve been so happy growing our family here as well as me growing my practice. I feel so fortunate to continue serving clients in both California where I’m still licensed as well as Ohio.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s definitely not been a smooth road.
One of my biggest reality checks was realizing just how long it would take to be a fully licensed therapist.
I knew grad school would be a couple years, but it was closer to three years for me because I had my first daughter in the middle of school and took time off to be with her. I didn’t realize just how financially challenging it would be to work only part-time while going to school, raising a baby, and knowing I still had thousands of clinical hours ahead of me before I could become independently licensed.
I knew intellectually changing professional careers would be hard. But knowing something will be hard and actually living through it are two very different things.
There were times I was really frustrated and scared I’d made a wrong decision. I was so lucky to have a wonderful mentor and adviser, Kay Wenger, LMFT, who helped me keep perspective multiple times and reminded me to trust my clinical skills and intuition.
Another big struggle was finding out my partner’s job fell through the day we were moving our furniture into our new place in Ohio.
That was definitely not in our plan.
Suddenly, there was a lot more financial pressure on my practice and me than either of us had anticipated. I was so grateful I had my practice already established, and it doesn’t change the fact that it was an incredibly stressful time for both of us.
Looking back, I’m grateful my baby twins had their dad to take care of them. I know that is precious time we can’t get back.
Both of those experiences also taught me something I carry into my work today: Uncertainty is incredibly uncomfortable, even when you know all the coping skills and intellectually know the best path. Sometimes you can be doing everything “right” and you can still feel scared and overwhelmed.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The Integrative Counseling Center is a private therapy practice based in Gahanna, Ohio. I work with clients in person from Gahanna, Columbus, and surrounding communities, and I provide online therapy throughout Ohio and California.

I specialize in working with business owners who feel pulled between the demands of their work and the needs of their families—and who are starting to scare themselves with how they’re coping. They may be drinking more than they want to, relying on medication or other substances to sleep or keep going, experiencing panic attacks, or lying awake at night with a mind that simply will not shut off.

As any parent knows, there’s no clocking out from that job. It’s a labor of love, and it can still be incredibly difficult, especially in a culture where the expectations placed on parents continue to grow. Add the pressures of inflation, running a business, maintaining a partnership, and caring for aging parents, and it can easily begin to feel as though you’re running from one crisis to the next.

That pace is not sustainable.

Many of the people I work with experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). They learned to read a room quickly, anticipate problems, take care of others, push through discomfort, and remain highly capable in difficult situations. Those adaptations may have helped them become the resourceful and successful people they are today. But eventually, some of the same survival strategies that once protected them begin to hurt them.

My specialty is trauma-focused therapy, and I am a Trauma-Focused Certified EMDR Therapist. What sets my approach apart is that I help clients understand not only what they are thinking, but also what their nervous systems and bodies are communicating. Anger may arrive as a rush of heat or a clenched jaw. Anxiety may feel like a pounding heart or tightness in the chest. Grief may appear as heaviness, exhaustion, or tears that seem to come from nowhere. The body often carries information that words alone cannot fully reach.

EMDR therapy allows me to work with the client’s connections among memories, emotions, beliefs, and physical sensations. Rather than simply understanding why a pattern exists, clients have an opportunity to process the experiences beneath it so that the past no longer has the same hold on the present.

I often tell clients that I wish I had discovered EMDR therapy a couple of decades earlier. It would have saved me a great deal of pain, confusion, time, and money. That personal experience is part of why I feel so strongly about helping people access this work.

What I am most proud of is that The Integrative Counseling Center offers more than another place for overwhelmed people to be told to practice self-care. My goal is to help people genuinely feel better, understand themselves with greater compassion, and create meaningful change in the midst of complicated lives.

I currently have a limited number of openings for new clients. In addition to traditional therapy sessions, I offer EMDR Intensives for people who want dedicated time to work more deeply on a particular experience, issue, or pattern. Intensives can be especially helpful for business owners and family caregivers who may not have the flexibility to attend weekly therapy, or who feel ready for a more focused approach.

This work is deeply meaningful to me, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. I also love having the opportunity to give back to the next generation of therapists through my role as a Clinical Supervisor at Pepperdine University’s Telehealth Community Counseling Clinic in Calabasas, California. I have the privilege of continually learning and growing alongside both my clients and the therapists I supervise, and I never take that responsibility for granted.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Something that might surprise people is that trauma therapy isn’t all doom and gloom. Yes, I sit with sadness, anger, fear, and anxiety, but there’s also laughter, awe, gratitude, joy, and profound relief. I get to witness people understand themselves and others in new ways, reconnect with parts of themselves they may have lost, and begin to feel genuinely hopeful again. No two sessions are ever the same, and I love being present for the full range of the human experience.

Pricing:

• Standard 50-minute session: $250
• Ask about pricing for EMDR Intensives

Contact Info:

• Website: http://theintegrativecounselingcenter.com